I will admit to finishing reading this book a good few days ago, but I need a chunk of time to write these reviews that I really didn’t get in the week back after our holiday in Cornwall. I was slightly worried about reading this one as it’s traditionally been one of my least favourite, however I recall liking it a lot more last time, and I found even less to feel weird about this time. Maybe it’s a book that gets better with increasing maturity (or age!). Discuss! Let’s NOT discuss any further how Vintage didn’t do a “red spine” edition of this one. It’s fine. Honestly.

EDITED TO ADD: After some comments and some thinking about this on my own part, I’ve realised that I’m using these ‘reviews’ of IM’s books as sort of notes for discussion rather than traditional or formal reviews, using a kind of shorthand regarding themes etc. I’ve realised this might be a bit offputting to the casual or new visitor, or the person visiting IM for the first time, even, so I’ve added this comment here and tweaked the piece slightly to hopefully make it a bit more approachable. I’ve made additions in italics on 23 October in the early morning, so the first two comments on the post were made before that.

Iris Murdoch – “Bruno’s Dream”

(August 2018)

Bruno, very elderly and frail, is dying slowly in his son-in-law Danby’s house. Across London, his estranged son, Miles, lives with his second wife and her sister in some sort of domestic harmony. Meanwhile Danby dallies with the maid, Adelaide, who is mixed up with a pair of twins, weird actor Will and Nigel, Bruno’s nurse. As the Thames threatens to flood, Bruno mulls over his indiscretions, his obsession with spiders, his stamp collection and the metaphor of his dressing gown as he sinks and the waters rise.

When I first read this book, in my mid-teens, it really did feel like it was all about Bruno’s slow death, and I found it morbid and alarming and really wasn’t keen. But there’s so much more to it than that, including a range of interesting other characters and their tangled relationships. What I hadn’t realised, though, or remembered, was just how much Adelaide (like Patty?) is abused and mistreated.

We’re straight into Bruno’s consciousness at the start of the novel, and it’s amazing how she “gets” his life and his slow decline. With the description much later, “He felt as if the centre of his mind was occupied by a huge black box which took up nearly all the space and round which he had to edge his way. Names not only of people but of things eluded him, hovering near him …” (p. 278), it’s almost impossible not to think of IM’s own Alzheimer’s, isn’t it (or is that just me, ignoring my Reception Theory / Death of the Author underpinning?). But it’s not all about him and soon we meet Danby, and a great pithy summary of his character:

Danby was the sort of man who, if civilisation were visibly collapsing in front of him, would cheer up if someone offered him a gin and French. (p. 11)

There’s not so much farce and humour in this book as there is in some of the others, even if there’s some drawing-room stuff and some partner swapping going on. It’s more irony: Bruno saving the stamp collection for a rainy day has pathos and humour when he considers what he could have done with the money, and then savage irony when it’s an actual rainy day that takes it away. There is the farce of everyone thinking Danby has crept into Miles and Diana’s garden to see them which reminds us of other misunderstandings in other novels. The duel, again, could be farcical but is odd and disturbing and leads Nigel to make a strange claim about who he loves. IM does seem to like amusing when she’s describing a house: she’s done that before and she does it again in Auntie’s house: “Not everything which ought to be against a wall had a wall to be against” (p. 45)

I think something which might be unique in this book is the flash forward to Adelaide and her marriage and children: does this happen in any other of the novels? Also quite unusual is the brief flash of feminism on p. 220:

‘My name is Nigel. I’m the nurse. Nigel the Nurse. I suppose I should say the male nurse, the way people say women writers, though I don’t see why they should, do you, as more women are writers than men are nurses. Wouldn’t you agree?’

Another weird thing I found: Nigel refers to Adelaide as taking the stamp “for Will Boase” – however Will is his twin and Danby knows this (doesn’t he?) so why would he refer to him as Will Boase and not just Will?

With our main themes that we find in most of her novels, and which make IM’s entire oeuvre something many people read over and over again, rather than having a particular favourite, in the descriptions of women, Diana “tucked her hair well back behind her ears and thrust her pale smooth large-eyed face boldly forward at the world” and I think if we came upon that in isolation we’d know it was IM, wouldn’t we? Adelaide fulfils an important theme by having her hair cut off and then carrying the cut-off bit around with her. With siblings, we have Diana and Lisa and their swap in importance and power; Lisa also becomes a sort of child in Diana and Miles’ marriage. Miles and Danby are brothers-in-law and of course we have nasty Will and creepy Nigel, weird twins grown up but torturing each other rather than conspiring. Why was it Bruno and not them I found horrifying on my original reading of the book?

In further doubling, Lisa resembles the dead Gwen, Miles’s first wife, and Nigel goes to do the job Lisa originally signed up for in Calcutta. Bruno has written his Great Book but it wasn’t a huge tome after all and we get a wryly amusing passage about its decline from a planned great work to a couple of articles. Nigel spends quite a lot of time looking through windows from damp gardens, and then Danby has his foolish climb into Miles and Diana’s back garden to look through their window, causing the horrible almost-farce in the garden. Water is of course a main theme, with the threat of the Thames flooding and the flood scene, plus Danby’s escape from the duel by swimming the Thames. Adelaide’s tears make more water appear. And who can forget London and its fogs, redolent of “The Time of the Angels” or “A Severed Head” as almost another character.

IM is often talked about as having a central enchanter and a saint figure in her novels. Who is the enchanter and who the saint? Poor old Adelaide feels herself not to be like other people, lives in clutter and “did not feel herself in any way attached” which is quite a classic indicator of Murdochian sainthood. She’s in the power of Danby and Will but is maybe enchanted rather than saintly? Lisa is spoken of as having a vocation and she is a “bird with a broken wing” but also very strong: she works in an “atmosphere of dirt and poverty and muddle” and “lived in a real world” (p. 148), and of course she cares for Bruno without revulsion and tries to go and do charity work but finds her role is back healing the folk around her. She is also described has having “superb negativity” (p. 254) and being detached.

I’m not sure there IS an enchanter. Nigel claims he’s God but I think he’s just a creepy hippy – and certainly no enchanter claims to be one and usually becomes on by his subjects making him one. Or maybe he’s a saint: he gives Diana advice to “Let them trample over you in their own way” (p. 223), although he doesn’t seem to follow his own advice. But again, he talks in his letter to Danby of being a saint, and the way to be one is not to strive to be one, isn’t it. Diana learns to let people do as they will and to look after Bruno without recoiling, so is maybe moving towards goodness. As Bruno fades, she realises, “She tried to think about herself but there was nothing there” (p. 289) so in helping Bruno she’s subsumed her own person – and become saintly?

Echoes of other books: First of all, the pursuit of a woman is back, when Bruno chases Janie through the department store early on. Miles also sees a woman in a pale dress walking across the paving stones in the dark and doesn’t know whether it’s his wife or sister-in-law. Gwen and Danby meet on the Circle Line Tube, a line which will of course assume prominence in “A Word Child” (taking a forward echo on for once). The fog and London echo “A Severed Head” and “The Time of the Angels”, and of course Will Boase and/or his sons are mentioned in “The Sea, The Sea” (which I love).

I’ve really been feeling my way as I’ve written my review here rather than formulating thoughts on the book in advance and putting forward full hypotheses. I certainly reacted viscerally to some of the scenes and like it a good deal more than when I first read it, 30-odd years ago. I hope this piece isn’t too muddled and is clearer now!

Please either place your review in the comments, discuss mine or others’, or post a link to your review if you’ve posted it on your own blog, Goodreads, etc. I’d love to know how you’ve got on with this book and if you read it having read others of Murdoch’s novels or this was a reread, I’d love to hear your specific thoughts on those aspects, as well as if it’s your first one!

If you’re catching up or looking at the project as a whole, do take a look at the project page, where I list all the blog posts so far.

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Maybe a good bit of it is simply down to your changing expectations, that you are not expecting it to be “up there” with your favourite Murdochs. This isn’t one that I’ve got on hand, but I will keep looking for it second-hand.

Maybe – I kind of knew I didn’t dislike it any more after the last round. I’m going to say this in the reply below, too, but I think part of it is the format of this readadlong, and I’m thinking of it as notes for a discussion rather than a traditional or formal book review.

I don’t think anything needs to be changed in your review; I can tell that I would enjoy it immensely, all the details and specifics, had this been one of the books that I had been able to find and read for this month.

Well, this is an extraordinary review. I’ve struggled with Iris Murdoch since our book group joined your blog about them and not really become attracted to any of them. This review does not make me the slightest bit interested in reading this book, or even catching up with the others. It is a great PITY because I think almost all of your IM followers really enjoy her writing. What makes me so different I wonder?

Nevertheless, please keep me in the distribution loop – there is sure to be something wonderful coming up soon.
Warmly,
Jan

I’m sorry you’ve never taken to her but there are plenty of people who don’t like her: remember this is kind of a bubble or an echo chamber, given that it’s a stated readalong with people reading alongside me. Some of them, like Brona for the last one, really don’t like her even when trying to read more! So you’re not different; we probably are.

I think the odd nature of this review (although it is quite like the other ones I’ve done for this project) is that it’s more notes for discussion rather than a formal or traditional review, so I’m using a sort of shorthand to discuss themes that have already come up. I’ve realised this could be rather offputting to the casual reader coming upon it, so I’m going to put a note about this in the review and also change a bit of the wording. Thank you for helping me formulate that idea, which was swirling round my head vaguely.

And I can’t keep you out of the distribution loop, even if I wanted to: its my readers’ choice to subscribe and I can’t subscribe or unsubscribe anyone!

Jan – I’m glad you want to stay in the distribution. I hope you will find one of her novels engages you. I know people who have loved The Sea, The Sea and eagerly picked up another Murdoch novel, only to struggle to get past the first chapter. I definitely have my preferences. You may find you have more of an affinity for her later work.

I still feel that there’s something really disturbing about the whole book, maybe because it’s so bound up with Bruno’s ageing and becoming more decrepit, the feel of how this is told seems to be so full of decay. Maybe it’s just because very old age/illness/dying freaks me out so much I don’t know.

Mostly what’s always caught me about this one is a. Adelaide and her (really disturbing) abusive relationship with Will. There’s all these things you can say about collusion and being drawn in that I think are entirely appropriate to debate in their relationship and, I have to say, I’m never happy at the end when she marries him and settles down and appears “happy”. There just is something very wrong about that dynamic between them that worries me for what the rest of her life with him would be like. I think mental cruelty and all these things can be hard to pin down but Will strikes me as just the wrong shade of psychotic, so I don’t think that does bode well for their future.

Diana is an interesting one because I think there’s so much attention paid to her age (as there is with quite a few of Murdoch’s characters across all her novels) and her middle-aged female body. I feel for her quite a lot in being described this way as I never think it’s quite fair that women (shall we say over a certain age – past childbearing perhaps?) are essentially body shamed. Or if they are noticed by men from any kind of attraction point of view it always feels fetishized and a bit weird? I’ve probably commented that before, but I think you find it here again, and Diana seems to take on a kind of gloomy resignation to just being older and less interesting to men. She doesn’t really seem that surprised when Lisa becomes the more interesting one. Whatever Miles says about loving everybody and not letting anybody go, it feels like an excuse, and I think Diana ends up in this terrible relegated position where no one wants to come out and say “well we’re having an affair you should leave now”; she seems to have this sad kind of gratitude and, yes, resignation, like she expected it. Franca in Message to the Planet I think has a similar set of problems.

Mostly I just see very weird relationship dynamics in this one, Nigel is of course really weird and creepy. The recollections of childhood between him and Will are quite horrifying. All in all it’s one of the one’s that raised my eyebrows quite a bit. But that’s not to say I don’t like it . . . Tricky.

Thank you for your enlightening comments as always. I have noticed in the past IM’s what I’d call artifice-shaming, as in all those dreadful women with dyed hair and fancy stocking and make-up, but I’m really noticing this time (she does it in Severed Head, for example) the shaming of middle-aged women going to seed. I can’t believe I’d not remembered the awful wedding scene set out just like a funeral until the very end: Will is all about coercive control but I’ve read this at least twice as a committed feminist and campaigner for domestic violence services so thought that would have stuck in my head more. The teenage years are heady ones, aren’t they, and authors we love then stick, despite the awful things in some of their books.

I liked your review and the freshness of your response Liz and hope this approach takes some pressure off you. Your idea of notes for discussion is a good one (although your summaries have been superb)
I must confess I am yet to start Bruno’s Dream as I have been busy with other stuff this month. I hope to read it after the weekend and must get some sort of review posted before the end of the month.
I have not read this book for many years and like Liz I remember it as being morbid and gloomy, so wonder how it will be getting into it again. I must say, so far with Blog support and encouragement, I have enjoyed all of them so far. As with all Iris Murdoch novels they are very different every time I read them and they do ‘speak’ in different ways so I hope some of the people who can not get into her will eventually find some pleasure in her books. There are some good ones coming up and a lot of variety. I do understand they are different form a lot of novels and it can be hard to get immersed into them.
So don’t feel bad about not being entranced by her work, Jan, and please stay with us. I would honestly like to hear what you do not like about her and what puts you off. When I read a lot of one author I get too close to it and I need pulling back a bit.

With regard to the hair – the description you quote is a great one for the anthology of Murdoch hairstyles. She is so good at writing about the beauty of hair both male and female, and her descriptions of dresses are wonderful. Yet photographs of her suggest she did not seem to do anything about her own hairstyle apart from keep it relatively short, and her clothes seem to be chosen for comfort rather than elegance. (I have just re-read that and my apologies as I do not mean to be bitchy and unsisterly, but I am just stating what I see.) I think she was too preoccupied with all sorts of other things and had the confidence not to stress over her appearance, but she just marvelled at the beauty of other people especially women.

Thank you, Maria – I did edit it to be slightly more traditional and tell a bit about the story of the thing! I do find IM’s obsession with hair and dress quite amusing given her own style as shown in the photos we have, but I do like her set of hairstyles which rotate through the book. I hope you get to read it through soon and find it less morbid (I certainly do each time; however, I wonder how I’ll find it in later years: I got more caught up in terms of age with Anita Brookner’s heroines and had to stop reading her!

I also liked your approach with the review this time, Liz. Every time I read another novel, I find myself wondering how you can possibly encapsulate it. Reading this novel after The Nice and the Good, I felt it took a half-step back toward the more closed novels. Like you I was reminded of The Time of the Angels. Though the characters do not live in as limited and repressive a world, the rain in this book, like the fog in Angels, is a nearly constant presence, giving a sense of enclosure and darkness. At the same time there is a lot of movement between the two houses in this book, so there really is a sense that these characters work and act in a broader and more open social context.

I do think it was brave of Murdoch to focus so pointedly on a dying man, something she hasn’t previously attempted. There is no way the reader can escape Bruno’s condition, except for a few chapters at a time perhaps, and it’s uncomfortable to be in the consciousness of someone so aware of their mortality. Maybe that’s why I stopped reading about 2/3ds of the way through on my previous attempt, though I had read it prior to that. I succeeded in finishing this time around and I found it quite a good read.

I am always compelled by the character of Nigel when I read this novel. I tend to see Nigel as someone who is seeking a kind of enlightenment through selfless love but who is unable to resist manipulating the people he loves most (Danby and Will). He has a kind of self-less vision, like Effingham’s in the bog, where he sees “a single blinding point of light which absorbs all light into itself. The colourless silence vibrates and sways. . . Time and space crumple slowly. . . Love is death. All is one.” He tries to convey this message to Diana: “Love them and let them walk on you.” This advice could lead to a sort of masochism (hence, perhaps Michelle’s discomfort with Diana’s resignation) but it does provide a framework through which she can at least temporarily look beyond herself and reach out to Bruno. In his own life, however, Nigel is hardly self-less. He fails to achieve his vision. He literally ties up his brother and, by sharing Danby’s love letters to Adelaide, encourages him to plot revenge on Danby in a dangerous encounter that plays into his own fantasies. Only when he sees the deadly reality of the situation does he intervene. Perhaps his commitment to take up charity work, a more practical application of his vision, will help him integrate his life and ideals; but with Murdoch there is no guarantee.

As for why Nigel refers to his brother as Will Boase instead of just Will, good question! I can’t remember the full context, but could it be an indication of his irritation with Will? Instead of referring to him as the more familiar Will, he distances himself by using his full name. I’m a twin and the only time I could imagine using my brother’s full name would be if I was upset with him or wanted to distance myself. Or if I was referring to him in his professional capacity.

Thank you, Peter – this one was easier to do than The Nice and the Good, apart from having the time to go through the forest of post-it slips. I’m definitely making more effort than last time, although we had quite long discussions in our Yahoo Group and I really ought to dig those posts out and share them somewhere, too!

I’m interested to hear that you’ve read it all the way through, then abandoned it, then read it again – was it being in this loose discussion group that helped yo to complete this time, or reading it at a different time in life? As I mention above, I had to give up on Anita Brookner as too realistic as I crept towards her characters’ ages, but this bothers me less now than it did as a teen. I’m 46, so I wonder if next time it will be different again.

I love your assessment of Nigel, I tend to dismiss him as a weird hippy but you’re right, he does have a lot of emotional and plot work in the novel and turning to practical comfort and work does represent growth in him.

I’m trying to recall just why I abandoned it. My brother had given me a hardback Viking first edition as a present about 10 years ago, so i felt somewhat obligated to give it another read. But my heart wasn’t entirely in it. Reading with the discussion group definitely helped me finish it this time around. And I think being older too and having gone through some of the same issues of care taking for parents, I could relate better to the material.

I took a look at Nigel’s conversation with Danby about Will Boase. It does seem to me that at this point Nigel is at least conflicted about his brother and possibly angry; but that may not be enough to account for his calling him by his full name. It’s interesting that Murdoch rarely (if ever) refers to Nigel as Nigel Boase. But she frequently refers to Will by his full name. And in the same conversation Danby twice refers to Will by his full name even after his identity has been established. There are no other Wills that we know of with whom he could be confused. So it could just be a convention between Will and Danby or just that Nigel wants to make it crystal clear who he is identifying. It also could be, in part, that Nigel is separating himself from the family identity. Nigel’s world seems isolated in some ways from the rest of the novel. When he is alone or watching others, Murdoch writes about him in the present tense, as if he operates in a different reality. He doesn’t seem as connected to the Boase family, not nearly as connected to Auntie as Will. Nigel is usually just Nigel or Nigel the Nurse, identified not with family but with his occupation, or perhaps with his ideal conception of himself. In his final letter to Danby he says that “Nigel” never really existed and he doesn’t sign the letter with any name, as if he’s moving yet further away from the kinds of identity that usually define us. Anyway, that’s probably making too much of a small point but it’s fun to theorize.

Just got in under the wire 😉 This was one I thought I would enjoy initially, then after the introduction of Nigel and Will was less sure but by the end I was won over and found Bruno’s last days quite emotional.
I really don’t know what to make of Nigel, is he just a weird hippie, a sadistic manipulator who uses people’s secrets against them or some sort of mystic who can predict how Diana will feel by the end of the book? Either way, I don’t like him or Will, their weird relationship and their behavior towards Adelaide and, as Michelle commented, the flash forward showing her happy doesn’t really make up for that.
Like you, Liz, for once I didn’t think there was an enchanter either, or at least I couldn’t work out who it would be and I agree about Murdoch’s preoccupation with women of a certain age and their looks.
I feel like there is more to the idea of Bruno as monster and to the idea of life as a dream, I noticed Diana and Danby also refer to life seeming ‘like a dream’ but as usual there is so much to unpack in these books that I can see why rereading leads to many more thoughts and observations.
Anyway, my review is linked below, as usual I tried not to give too much away and feel I end up saying nothing at all but it helps me keep track of how I feel about these novels.
I’ve just picked up A Fairly Honorable Defeat from the library and noticed that it and several of the ones after are much chunkier so I better start more promptly than usual!
Jo

Thank you for your comment here, Jo, and I love your review, thank you. I can’t think why I didn’t find Will and Nigel problematic before – very odd. Maybe now I’m significantly older than them, I can see them more clearly. The dream point is a good one and you make more good points in your review, which I have already linked to in the draft of my round-up post for later today.

And yes, they do get “baggier” from now on. But “A Fairly Honourable Defeat” is such a great read: I think you’ll love it!

I think I have just got in on time and my review is a short one- just a collection of thoughts. I was not sure what I would make of this one but what struck me was the way Iris Murdoch just presents the picture of a dying old man with no sentimentality. She is such a courageous author – she just confronts the reality of dying, decay and death and creates a wonderful pattern of relationships and transformations around it – like a spider’s web. Bruno continues to face his demons is human right until the last sentence and Iris Murdoch is very sensitive about the relationship of the carer – Diana who finds herself the significant person despite her inclinations and comes to know the love of the carer for the dying. Miles goes through stages of grieving for Parvati

The themes I picked up on in quite a rapid read where – Love and Death are juxtaposed and the action takes place between the river and the cemetery. There are two widowers transforming their bereavement while sorting out in their minds what it is to love. As well as all the doubles there are also triangles constantly moving. I think there are only 11 characters but they form a number of groups Will/Adelaide/Nigel, Diana/Miles/Parvati, Gwen/Danby/Adelaide, Danby loves Lisa who loves Miles, Will/Nigel/Danby in the duelling scene.It is all like a dance and in the background there is the threat of the flood which changes the whole dynamic.

Yes Nigel and Wiil – very Shakespearean twins or two sides of one person or even the doctrine of Humours. Nigel light and airy and moving and Will heavy bad tempered and more static. I thought the scene where Nigel goes through the city of London looking into the windows of people’s houses very filmic and at the same time reminiscent of the 1960s hippy music scene. But Nigel was like the Fool in the chapter when he has the very Murdochian talk to Diana about how self love is mistaken for love for others and says ‘I’m the nonsense priest of the nonsense god!’ (an alternative view point to Carel Fisher in Time of the Angels) And yet he is caring and he is the one who loves Danby and goes off to India to work for Save the Children,

Yes there were lots of sorts of angels again going back to Time of the Angels- Lisa seen as ‘a tall cold angel’.

And there were hilarious scenes such as the registry office and the garden scen when Diana hands the drunken Danby a box to make his escape on.

I thought the paragraph about Adelaide and Will’s marriage was like a bit of a nineteenth- century novel, with an inheritance thrown in.

Michelle’s review sums up how I feel about ‘Bruno’s Dream’. None of the characters are likeable, even approachable, and all the relationships are seemingly abusive, manipulative, or powered by envy. I struggle to see any kind of attempt at finding or establishing a kind of agape love.

Nigel talks of himself as a saint but, as Liz put it so pithily, is really a creepy hippy. Lisa is considerate and kind to Bruno, but her willingness to cater to the needs of an old men seems to a come more from a desire to be subservient than an attempt to do good.

The novel seemed to reflect Bruno’s life, a series of web-like entanglements without any connecting or thread of love. Just as Bruno contemplates the end of life in a universe without God, or any concept of a great beyond after death, so we have the universe of a novel that has no animating force beyond the temporary desires of the characters for short-term sexual or financial fulfilment.

Murdoch’s charting of Bruno’s decline was powerful writing. She captured both his self-awareness of the indignities of age, and his inability to process the brutal and enormous reality of approaching the end of his life.

I also got the feeling throughout that Murdoch had little time for Bruno and made the central character of the book especially unlikeable, despite the pathos of his situation.

Final note, I loved the flood passage. For a writer whose prose are so often careful and considered, urgent and hectic scenes really jump out of the page. It reminded me of Don climbing the school tower in The Sandcastle, when we are confronted with a scene not of philosophical exploration but high drama and jeopardy.